Alex Reid

Wooohoooo.. nearly four years to the day that I started the Skateboarding Association of Winnipeg with the intention of lobbying for a world-class skatepark in Winnipeg, The Forks announced they are building a world-class skatepark at The Forks.

This is a major coup for skateboarders in Winnipeg – and a great relief for me!

Kevin Pauls and I spent much time meeting with politicians and business owners in 2001/2002. We retained our Architectural firm and met with The Forks people (appointed board, set up by all three levels of gov’t) back in September 2001.

We met with the Mayor (Glen Murray) and I made a presentation to the City’s EPC the same day we met with The Forks people, in which the City would consult with their plan to re-assess the community centres. Even though the City decreed officially to work with us, we were left out of the picture. Glen Murray directed us to talk to Gerald Mirecki, the Manager of Community Services. When we called Mirecki, he suggested us to talk to the Mayor… and on and on went the BS. I logged 23 calls to the Mayor’s office, with zero calls back to us. I wrote two official letters to the Mayor’s office outlining how this was contradictory to the EPC decision in September 2001. The Winnipeg Sun picked this up, and by the time it mattered, the Mayor resigned from his position to run in the Federal election.

His Deputy Chief of Staff would later tell me that it was her fault that we never received one phone call back. Obviously something is wrong when 23 calls to your office goes ignored.

Disappointments aside, I successfully raised the issue of seeing the City of Winnipeg build skatepark with absolutely no money. I used my City Hall media contacts abroad to get the message out there. We petitioned and received the names of over 9,000 people to support us. What’s sweet is that I’m not even a skateboarder; so I have very little to personally benefit from the skatepark!

So why do it? Call it community service, call it saving someone down the road from idle hands, call it experience, call it whatever. I did it because I really believe the skatepark will benefit not only the young and old of Winnipeg, but also will do much to raise Winnipeg’s profile across North America. Having this skatepark – along with the other rinky dink parks across the city – boosts our ‘cool’ level. And it was great experience for me, to raise an issue using no money, putting on fundraisers, gathering a group of apathetic people for a common goal and finally, helping Winnipeg rock all that much more.

But really, this is my own test to prove (to anyone or myself) that one doesn’t need to be elected to office to get things done. Sure if might help, but I have more freedom right now not being elected and choosing projects and issues that are important to me and/or my community.

One project down, 87 to go.

Hacktivism and the Future of Political Participation

Ah hah! So, the Ottawa Sun has uncovered the fact that Agent Orange was used in New Brunswick. Agent Orange used in New Brunswick

I had a friend, Jessie, from PEI who used to tell me his grandfather was the inventor of Agent Orange. Since I can’t remember Jessie’s last name, or his mother’s maiden name, I searched for the inventor’s name online. I didn’t find it, but I did find this interesting bio on Ananda Chakrabarty.

He developed pseudomonas bacterium which can be used to break down environmental spoils such as Agent Orange and Crude Oil. The bacteria literally eats away at the oil and creates safe aquatic food. I found this guy especially interesting because apparently his work prompted the “1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision that forms of life created in the laboratory can be patented.

In “Diamond vs. Chakrabarty,” the US Supreme Court held five to four that living, manmade microorganisms are patentable. The court ruled that patents could be issued for “anything under the sun that is made by man.” In upholding Chakrabarty’s position, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote, “The relevant distinction is not between living and inanimate things,” but rather between naturally existing and human-made inventions. Because Chakrabarty’s bacterium was created in a laboratory through cross breeding, it was not “nature’s handiwork,” the court said, but the product of “human ingenuity and research.”

Then I found this hippie-looking background website Patentability of Human Genes which says that “July 2000, there were 1,000 patents issued for human genes“. But it clarifies that much of the 1,000 patents likely are of Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) which is merely a piece of the puzzle and not the whole puzzle.

What is an EST? An EST is a fragment of a gene obtained through sequencing. Generally very little is known about the EST at the time of its sequencing, other than its source. As of the end of 2000, under the federal Patent Act, Section 112 [35 U.S.C. 112], EST holders may not claim the entire gene from which the EST was sequenced. The sequencing of an EST simply does not provide enough information about the entire gene to be patentable. And this website goes on to state that the EST must be “an invention must be novel, nonobvious, and have utility” to be patented. (more info at Gearing up for patents by Manisha Shridhar

Sure, these are the rules set out by the US. But this has an impact on Canadians as well, as the Canadian government is considering amending several of its patent rules regarding medical assistance to Africa to curtailing P2P file sharing.

I’m just trying to wrap my mind around this all, and shall deliver more background info when I can. In the meantime, it’s food for thought

It’s the final week – thank good cookies. It looks like Harry Lazarenko might win again this year. I don’t know if we’ll continue it next year, now that we’re all getting election-mania burned out. Besides, this was the third year – it’s time to move on to other democracy-encouraging projects.

Survivor at City Hall in Winnipeg